We have attempted to estimate the contribution of photovoltaics to global energy production. Currently the installed base of photovoltaics worldwide has an output of about 5.0 gigawatts. Since the sun doesn’t shine 24 hours per day, the actual yield is probably about one-third that amount, call it 2.0 gigawatt-years in 2005. While [...]

We’ve been trying for some time to find a good prediction of how quickly worldwide photovoltaic manufacturing is going to increase. We know in 2005 the entire world production of photovoltaic cells was about 1.6 gigawatts. How much will we add in 2006? Where will we be by 2010?

Photo: Sandia National Labs [...]

In our previous post, “Earthly Heating,” we noted that because we want to limit CO2 emissions, carbon neutral biofuel plantations crowd out food crops, and in the inner recesses of mega-cities of earth’s equatorial regions, food costs more, and the poor starve. This is an over-simplification.
It is true that biofuel crops may raise the [...]

Got your attention? Probably not. Earthly heating is an unlikely search phrase. Actually, of course, this post regards global warming. And to-date, for the most part, we have posted information about specific aspects of global warming, or in-depth treatments of the subject, always including links galore to help the reader. [...]

We may stand guilty of downplaying the future of crystaline photovoltaics. After all, exponential growth is necessary for alternative energy to take over the world, and after all, it is no simple matter to manufacture crystaline photovoltaics. But as amply documented in our post “The Coming Boom in Photovoltaics,” the only thing thing [...]